Organized in partnership with China Institute in America.
Join us for an inspiring conversation with Tony Award-winning playwright and librettist David Henry Hwang and celebrated composer Huang Ruo about their groundbreaking new opera, “The Monkey King,” which makes its world premiere at San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House from November 14–30, 2025.
Based on the classic Chinese novel “Journey to the West,” this dynamic production fuses high-energy music and text with puppetry, dance, Peking opera, and Buddhist sutras as it brings to life the legendary origin story of the Monkey King.
Organized by China Institute of America in partnership with the Asian Art Museum, this program offers a unique opportunity to hear directly from these visionary artists as they share insights into their creative process, reflect on their most significant works, and discuss the art of cross-cultural storytelling. Together, they will examine the timeless power of myth to illuminate questions of identity, transformation, and freedom in the modern world.
Program tickets are required for entry. Seating begins at 4 p.m. Ticketholder entry is guaranteed only until 4:20 p.m. Unclaimed seats will be released to the rush line on a first-come, first-served basis should space become available.
David Henry Hwang’s work includes the plays M. Butterfly, Yellow Face (2024 Tony Award-winning Broadway revival broadcast on PBS Great Performances), Chinglish, The Dance, and the Railroad, and FOB, as well as the musicals Soft Power, Flower Drum Song, and Disney’s international hits Aida and Tarzan. Called America’s most produced living opera librettist, he has written thirteen libretti, including Ainadamar with composer Osvaldo Golijov (Metropolitan Opera premiere, Fall 2024) and The Monkey King with composer Huang Ruo (San Francisco Opera). Hwang was a Writer/Consulting Producer for the Golden Globe-winning television series The Affair and co-wrote the Gold Record “Solo” with the late pop legend Prince. He is a Tony Award winner and four-time nominee, a Grammy Award winner and two-time nominee, a three-time OBIE Award winner, and a three-time Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Hwang has been inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Dramatists Guild in 2025.
Composer Huang Ruo has been lauded by The New York Times for having “a distinctive style.” His vibrant and inventive musical voice draws equal inspiration from ancient and folk Chinese music; Western avant-garde, experimental, noise, natural and processed sound; rock; and jazz, creating a seamless, organic integration through a compositional technique he calls “Dimensionalism.”
Ruo’s diverse body of work spans orchestral, chamber, operatic, theatrical, and dance compositions, as well as cross-genre projects, sound and architectural installations, multimedia works, experimental improvisations, folk rock, and film. His music has been premiered and performed by the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, National Polish Radio Orchestra, Santa Fe Opera, Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Asko|Schönberg, Ensemble Modern, and the London Sinfonietta.
He has written eight operas, including M. Butterfly, The Rift, Book of Mountains and Seas, Bound, Angel Island, Between Two Lights, Paradise Interrupted, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, and An American Soldier, which was named one of the best classical music events of 2018 by The New York Times. His new opera, The Monkey King, will premiere at the San Francisco Opera in 2025.
Ruo served as the first composer-in-residence for Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam. He was born in Hainan Island, China in 1976
– the year the Chinese Cultural Revolution ended. Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s when China was opening its gate to the Western world, his education expanded from Bach, Mozart, Stravinsky, and Lutoslawski, to include the Beatles, rock and roll, heavy metal, and jazz. He earned a BM degree from Oberlin College, and MM and DMA degrees from the Juilliard School. Ruo is a composition faculty at the Mannes School of Music. His music is published by Schott/EAM.
In April, Dr. Soyoung Lee joined the Asian Art Museum as The Barbara Bass Bakar Director of CEO coming from the Harvard Art Museums, where she served as the Landon and Lavinia Clay Chief Curator since 2018. At Harvard, she led the museums’ collections-building and exhibitions, as well as its highly regarded Museum Training program, mentoring the next generation of museum professionals. She co-curated the exhibitions Future Minded: New Works in the Collection (2024) and Earthly Delights: 6,000 Years of Asian Ceramics (2022).
Before her time at the Harvard Art Museums, Dr. Lee spent 15 years at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As the Met’s first-ever curator for Korean art, Dr. Lee transformed the scope and impact of Korean art and culture — both at the museum and more broadly in the U.S. cultural landscape. Her publications include Diamond Mountains: Travel and Nostalgia in Korean Art (2018), Silla: Korea’s Golden Kingdom (with Denise Patry Leidy; 2013), and Korean Buncheong Ceramics from the Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art (with Jeon Seung-chang; 2011).
Dr. Lee served as Trustee at Large of the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) from 2017 to 2023, also serving as the Chair of its Finance & Audit Committee (2019–2020). She is an alumna of the Center for Curatorial Leadership (2018) and a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University (2024–25). She received her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in art history from Columbia University.
Born in Jakarta, Indonesia, Dr. Lee has lived in Seoul, Tokyo, Stockholm, London, Los Angeles, New York, and Cambridge, MA.
